Reproduction of rhythmic devices in the translation of political public speeches

Abstract

The present study is intended to identify trends in the reproduction of repetition-based rhythmic devices in the translation of political public speeches. The study surveys Address by President Obama to the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (2016) and Donald Trump Rose Garden Press Conference on COVID-19 Vaccine (2020) and their translations into Russian. The results of a comparative research showed that among syntactic rhythmic devices diacope and anadiplosis display the highest accuracy of reproduction in translation, while epizeuxis, epanalepsis and simploceare characterized by the lowest (zero) figures. Reproducibility indicators are relatively low for polysyndetonand epiphoraand heterogeneous for anaphora. The reasons for the accurate translation of syntactic devices are related to comparable opportunities of English and Russian in the formation of a rhythmic text pattern. The reasons for partial or zero reproduction of rhythmic devices in translation are explained by discrepancies in the grammatical and lexical structures of English and Russian, differences in the actual division of a sentence as well as a translator’s individual style. The loss of rhythmic means is compensated for in translation. Phonetic rhythmic means are reproduced with a high degree of precision. Despite some heterogeneity of the quantitative reproduction of rhythmic devices in translation, the rhythmic tension of the originals, as well as their message, voice and sentiment are considered to have been recaptured.